WTI: Cisco Launches Cius Android Tablet for Business
Agus Hamonangan
company is touting as a an ultraportable tablet for mobile
collaboration.
Cisco did not reveal a timeline or a price for the new tablet, which
appears to be the first Android tablet, at least, designed primarily
for business. (The Camangi WebStation is another 7-inch Android tablet
with a consumer focus.)
Unlike other tablets, Cisco said that the Cius (pronounced cee-us) was
designed for and is bundled with Cisco technologies designed for
mobile business, including the ability to take 720p video in
conjunction with the Cisco Telepresence solution. The tablet also
comes bundled with Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, WebEx, Presence,
and an instant-messenger app.
"Cisco Cius delivers on our vision of bringing the next wave of
collaborative experiences to our customers," said Kara Wilson, vice
president of UC and collaboration solutions marketing for Cisco, said
at the CiscoLive event in Las Vegas, a video of which was posted
online. "It will fundamentally change how your workers, executives and
managers will go about their day, ushering in a new era of
productivity."
Wilson said that Cisco will also partner with Android developers "to
bring Cisco's values to the Android developer community."
From a hardware perspective, the tablet measures 7-inches on the
diagonal, and weighs about 1.5 pounds. Inside is a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
processor, 32GB of internal Flash memory, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi,as well
as a promised 3G/4G connection. Cisco did not name a cellular carrier.
In addition to Cisco's collaborative computing applications, the
company said that the tablet will run a Mozilla browser.
Cisco showed the Cius in an undocked tablet configuration as well as
part of a docking station. Cisco's chief executive, John Chambers,
also reportedly unveiled a smaller version of the Cius for students as
well.
"You can slowly migrate to cloud computing by deploying business
tablets to executives, sales representatives and knowledge workers and
then expand mobility across your entire enterprise," Cisco said.
"Instead of bringing employees to where the work is, you can bring the
work to where the employees are."
Cisco provided a page with a slightly patronizing list of possible
candidates for the Cius, including "Supportive Susan" and "Busy
Executive Bill."
But what's more unclear about the Cius, besides basic questions
regarding when it will come to market and how much Cisco will charge,
are more IT-oriented concerns about remote-wipe and -kill features now
increasingly common to enterprise notebooks. It also appears that the
Cisco Cius could serve as part of an existing VOIP solution, but how
isn't exactly clear. Moreover, the Cius would seem to assume that any
and all enterprise apps must either live on the Web in a
Webkit-accessible format, or an enterprise would have to devote
resources to recoding them for Android.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365838,00.asp
--
Salam,
Agus Hamonangan
http://groups.google.com/group/id-android
http://groups.google.com/group/id-gtug
Gtalk : agus.hamonangan
Follow : @agushamonangan
E-mail : id.an...@gmail.com